Of the liberty songs, many are familiar to progressive politicians, or were till we got our terrible set-back at the late 'Khaki' election. They need reissuing in a popular form. Most people who read anything of this nature will remember the stanzas with the refrain:
'This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above,
And if we did our duty it might be as full of love.'
Such another is 'The People's Advent,' and the best of them 'The Earth for All,' two lines in which were often quoted in former days of agitation:
'Your Mother Earth, that gave you birth,
You only own her for a grave.'
Massey's longer poems I dare not even begin to quote from, only giving a few solitary gems of thought by way of conclusion:
'I heard Faith's low sweet singing in the night.
And groping through the darkness touch'd God's hand.'
'Ye sometimes lead my feet on the Angel-side of life.'
'Nature at heart is very pitiful,
How gentle is the hand doth gently pull
The coverlet of flowers o'er the face
Of death! and light up his dark dwelling-place!'
'Creeds, empires, systems rot with age,
But the great people's ever youthful:
And it shall write the future's page
To our humanity more truthful.'
Says Gilfillan (a half-forgotten author himself): 'Probably since Burns there has been no such instance of a strong, untaught poet rising up from the ranks by a few strides, grasping eminence by the very mane, and vaulting into a seat so commanding with such ease and perfect mastery.'